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With hundreds of instruments monitoring Canada’s ocean environment, Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) gathers the same amount of data as the Hubble Telescope. Turning a firehose of high resolution data into useful knowledge is the challenge of the century. ONC’s robust and sophisticated data management system, Oceans 2.0, is already recognized as a state-of-the-art ocean management tool for marine decision-making, and it’s about to get even better.

Oceans 2.0 is a versatile online tool that allows scientists and the public to access and manipulate data—including audio and video—from ONC’s hundreds of deep ocean and coastal sensors in real time, 24/7. Thanks to...

Ocean Networks Canada is pleased to announce two new data access features for the powerful data platform, Oceans 2.0: an optional login for most features and a data preview tool that enables navigation using tree-based selection.

Dr. Richard Dewey, Associate Director of Science reports temperature increases and concerns for marine species along the B.C. coast. Off the coast of Vancouver Island, data from the NEPTUNE observatory’s Folger Passage site is recording warmer ocean temperatures. “The whole ecosystem is impacted by these changes,” he said in a recent interview with CBC.

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC), an initiative of the University of Victoria, has further expanded its footprint across Canada with the launch of a new collaboration with the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE).

ONC is a world-leader in ocean observing technology supported by Oceans 2.0, its comprehensive data management system developed to provide a vital link between sensors and users around the world. With advanced observatories on the Pacific coast and in the Canadian Arctic, today’s launch on the Atlantic coast establishes ONC’s operations from sea to sea to sea.

Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) operates the world’s largest civilian observatory network for monitoring the oceans. Maintaining ONC’s nearly 900 kilometres of networked underwater sensors requires the cooperation of other major ocean stakeholders in the northeast Pacific, Salish Sea and western Arctic. The fishing industry and the Canadian Coast Guard are kept up to date on locations of infrastructure to minimize the risk of strikes by trawl gear or interference with safe navigation.

The biological transition from winter to spring conditions in the Strait of Georgia is characterized by a spring phytoplankton bloom. Understanding the dominant factors influencing the timing of the bloom is therefore the subject of considerable interest.

On April 1 at 4:46:45 PM, a magnitude 8.2 earthquake occurred off Chile's Pacific coastline. Shortly afterward, Ocean Networks Canada seismometers detected the tremors as they crossed the North Pacific.

10 March 2014, 05:18 UTC (10:18 pm local time) a magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck the southern end of Cascadia subduction zone. The epicentre location of the earthquake was about 50 km west of the California coast.

In the terrestrial world, we rely heavily on optics and our vision, and less so on acoustics and hearing. In the ocean, the opposite is true. In coastal waters, light only travels relatively short distances (5-20m), so marine animals use light for sensing only the very near-field environment, while sound can travel huge distances (1-1000km), and informs marine animals of distant features and events. Marine scientists also take advantage of the efficiency with which sound travels in the ocean, and use it to both investigate and listen to phenomena over long distances.

The Fraser River reaches the ocean near Vancouver, and there the fresh water it carries mixes with ocean water to form a thin plume of buoyant brackish water, which according to one oceanographer is the “showpiece of the Strait of Georgia.” Oceanographers have been studying the Fraser River plume since at least the 1960s, but more recently, VENUS has installed a radar system to measure the surface currents in this region.

Passive acoustic monitoring of marine mammals is a growing research theme on both the VENUS and NEPTUNE observatories. Universit of Victoria Co-op student Kristen Kanes works with the Ocean Networks Canada Innovation Centre (formerly Centre for Enterprise and Engagement, ONCCEE) to process passive acoustic data from their technology demonstrations. Together with John Dorocicz, Acoustic Systems Developer, the two “listeners” publicize the highlights from these data within relevant research communities.

Recent research shows that there are subtle variations to the time of zooplankton ascent and decent during the year, which might be attributed to both food supply and zooplankton life-cycle (body size).

An ongoing collaboration between Ocean Networks Canada and ASL Environmental Science resulted in a test deployment of the new echo-sounder at 300m on the VENUS Strait of Georgia array. The test-deployment is part of the technology demonstration led by Tom Dakin of the Ocean Networks Canada Innovation Centre.

UBC oceanographer Dr. Mark Halverson has been making use of VENUS Coastal Ocean Dynamics Applications Radar (“CODAR”) data from the Strait of Georgia in his research. His analysis revealed an abrupt cutoff in data availability to the south of the coverage area, rather than the gradual fall-off with distance from the two antennae one would expect from purely physical considerations.

ONC staff have co-authored another Journal of Acoustical Society of America (JASA) paper in conjunction with first author Nathan D. Merchant of the University of Bath and researchers from the University of Aberdeen. ONC's Tom Dakin, Sensor and Instrument Technology business development officer, and John Dorocicz, Acoustic Systems Developer, contributed to the manuscript, and Jeff Bosma and Richard Dewey also assisted with field work for the paper, "Spectral probability density as a tool for ambient noise analysis."

The figure shows the temperature and dissolved oxygen concentration from instrumentation in Saanich Inlet located at approximately 97 metres depth, for the period of 28 January-3 February 2013. The temperature decreases and oxygen increases, a sign that top-down and lateral mixing has finally penetrated our study area to bring upper water-column conditions down to our sensors and experiments at 97 m.

In September 2012, a small Pacific Red Octopus (Octopus rubescens) temporarily moved underneath the VENUS seafloor camera in the Saanich Inlet study area. Installed at 96 m in Patricia Bay (Saanich Inlet), the camera (one of several connected to VENUS) is a unique tool that helps researchers study marine life in its natural environment.

Stacked in the image are 48 plots generated from 16 sensors of the VENUS Ferry System installed on a BC Ferries M/V Queen of Alberni. The comprehensive system monitors oceanographic and atmospheric conditions while the ferry transits between Nanaimo (Duke Point) and Vancouver (Tsawwassen).

A strong magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck west of Craig, Alaska at 12:58AM PST, 5 January 2013. Tsunami warning and alerts were issued for a broad section of the Alaskan and Canadian coastline, but no damaging waves were generated.